Dave Wolf was the sixth NASA astronaut to reside on the Russian Space Station
Mir. Wolf, a medical doctor, arrived with the crew of STS-86
aboard the Space Shuttle Atlantis that launched September 25, 1997. After 119
days on Mir, he returned with the crew of STS-89
aboard the Space Shuttle Endeavour, which landed on January 31, 1998.

While on the Mir, Wolf assisted his Russian crewmates with systems work as
well as continuing his science program that included a host of biology and life
sciences experiments. His residency was extended, allowing the U.S. astronaut
additional time to complete his Mir science program, as well as participating
in the third spacewalk of Mir-24.

Calling the spacewalk "spectacular," Wolf completed almost four hours of EVA
on January 14, 1998, and felt honored to gain this experience with veteran Russian
cosmonaut, Anatoly Solovyev. In his Oral History, he said:

"When I was nine years old, I saw Ed White do the first American space walk,
and it was that moment that I decided I'd like to be an astronaut and, in fact,
I'd like to do a space walk as an astronaut. It was 31 years later that I did
it. It was worth every minute of the wait. But I never dreamed it would be from
a Russian spacecraft, in a Russian spacesuit, speaking Russian with a Russian
who had been out 16 times, the most experienced space walker in the world, and
that's what Anatoly Solovyev is.
So it was a real first-hand lesson from the number-one guy in the field, and
that was a privilege."

Wolf joined NASA's Medical Sciences Division at the Johnson Space Center in 1983. He directed the development of a space bioreactor that resulted in state-of-the-art
rotating tissue culture systems. He was also assigned as chief engineer in charge
of the design of the space station medical facility. Wolf became a NASA astronaut
in 1991.